New Map: World War 1 End of Empires

iratoric

@schulz Yeah I see what you mean. I think the main issue is that the coat of arms is cut off. Maybe try this one where it is centered:

iratoric

@schulz Here is a small version:

Schulz

@iratoric Great War map has already have this flag. I'am not even sure if the coat of arms/crowns should be displayed. I personally like simpler/national version of flags unless they have always used with crown versions.

For example I've never liked giant hammer ans sickles to represent the Soviet Union or Communists. I'am either favour of using the current Russian flag or geometrically proportioned crown symbol placed the circled Russian flag.

iratoric

@schulz Well technically this is the coat of arms placed atop the Russian flag. If you just want to use the regular flag then go ahead. If you do want the coat of arms on the flag, though, then I recommend putting it in the center of the circle.

iratoric

I'm considering adding upkeep to units where you will have to pay 1 PU per unit at the end of your turn. I would scale up every country's income by a factor of 10 to pay for the maintenance costs. For instance, Germany would go from $31 to $310. The unit prices would scale up as well. For instance, infantry would go from $3 to $30.

Benefits:

Armies will reach a maximum size by your ability to supply them
Russia can have a large army but they will have supply problems like they did historically

Do you want to see this feature added to the game?

RogerCooper

@iratoric Upkeep costs are realistic and prevent large stacks. Try it.

Schulz

@iratoric Definitely I would. Even multiplying incomes and unit costs with 10 alone have so many benefits without any drawback.

It allows map makers to value territories more freely. For example it is not possible to value a territory 1/2. But with multiplying everything, assigning 5 will be represent just 1/6 of infantry cost.
More freedom of costing units.

First I would suggest decreasing air and naval unit costs as much as possible without breaking balance between units. The purpose of this is allowing players to purchase more different variety of units and adding more reversibility.

For examle 1 zeppelin is almos half of Germany's starting income. Losing it in r1 in strategic bombing attemp might have irreversible consequences. I can see zeppelin costs have potential to be lowered to 6-8 with correct adjustments.

After that I would definitely implement upkeep but currently I have no strong opinion what would be the best upkeep ratings for units. I would make naval units having lower upkeep/cost ratio than land units and mobile land units having slighly higher upkeep than slow land units.

BTW I would suggest using this smallMap to get maxiumum screen.

iratoric

@schulz Thank you for the small map! I am currently testing upkeep in two parts: first, createsResourcesList of -1, which means that units will cost money to maintain. Secondly, each unit has a fuelCost of 1 which makes it cost a PU to move. I was thinking that for units like battleships they could have a higher fuel cost because they burn a lot of fuel. Here is an example with an infantry unit:

Note that it produces -1 PUs per turn and that it costs 1 PU to move. The maintenance cost could represent having to feed the troops and the fuelCost could represent the fuel consumed by trains and motorcars used to move them. Even if they travel on foot they would need more food because they would use more energy marching.

One thing that I noticed is that the AI will make the mistake of spending all their money on buying units and then have no money left to move. To solve this, I am moving the purchase phase after the movement phases.

Schulz

@iratoric I would definitely make combat phase first then nonCombat-purchase-placement. I'am not sure if AI could handle fuel after making combat phase first.

If AI can't handle this feature then it could be an optional feature for PvP games.

Also strategic bombing damages and factory production capacities should be readjusted. Need 10 Pu to repair each damage and factory productions should remain the same. (Ex:Poland can produce 2 units each round not 20)

RogerCooper

@schulz Do you really need a movement cost at all? The per turn upkeep is enough and avoids messing up the AI. Most of the fuel is consumed supplying troops, not moving them.

Schulz

@rogercooper Per turn upkeep is enough for me too but if he wants to incorporate fuel as well, i can't say anything about that.

iratoric

@schulz I pushed the new code just now. Fuel cost is optional and is disabled by default. Upkeep cost is -1 for each unit you own, and territory values are boosted by 10 to compensate. Right now I simply multiplied the territory values by 10, but I think I will distribute the PUs among the lower value territories in the next update. Bombing raids can cause between 1 and 60 damage to your income, and factories can place their territory value/10 units per turn.

I also made an attempt at a better Entente victory condition: If the Allies control Metropolitan France, Belgium, Alsace and the Ruhr they win the war. If they have captured those territories they are probably going to win anyway so it removes the need to slog through invading Germany.

Schulz

@iratoric

The fuel property need to be checked because there is still fuel cost even if I don't click this optional property.

I would name the property as "AI compatibility" since as far as I understand this game meant to play with fuel in PvP and without fuel againt AI.

You need to define all unit production values of all territories. For Example;

                <attachment name="territoryAttachment" attachTo="Belarus" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TerritoryAttachment" type="territory">
                    <option name="production" value="10"/>
                    <option name="unitProduction" value="1"/>            
                </attachment>

Also I think factories seems like expensive for this game.

Even I've never really liked A&A factory rules. I am favour of not allwing nations to build new factories and preventing using captured enemy factories. "Austria captures Rome and starts to mobilize Austrian infantries from here" does not make sense to me.

Preventing nations to use captured factories also increse reversibility since losing factory would be "less" important.

I think even "capturing Ruhr" alone would be good victory condition for Allies.

iratoric

@schulz I think the fuelCost will still appear but will not subtract PUs when you move. Unfortunately I was trying to make the fuelCost work but 2 PUs for every unit per turn ends up being too much for smaller countries like the Ottoman Empire (1 PU for each unit for upkeep and 1 PU for movement). It drains them of all their production every turn if they move all their units, which is not very fun. So I am leaving it disabled for now.

Also, I discovered that to enable unitProduction I had to enable the property "Damage From Bombing Done To Units Instead Of Territories". I am pushing the code now.

Schulz

@iratoric French and Ausrian flags here if you want to keep the consistency of the thickness of black circles of the flags. Not really important just very minor correction:

Russian land units looking to the correct direction;

That would be nice feature to see the Communist flag replacing the Russian flag after the Brest-Litovsk, not sure if it is possible.

iratoric

@schulz Thank you for those flags for France and Austria-Hungary! I just updated the map to use those flags. Also thanks for the horizontally flipped Russian land units, I replaced the old ones with those as well.

As for changing the flags in the middle of the game, I was looking at some of the XML options and saw the territoryProperty option within triggerAttachment. This option allows you to make changes to territoryAttachments after the game has started. Maybe I could make Moscow a capital of Soviet Russia when the Russian Revolution fires? I will have to see if this will work.

RogerCooper

@iratoric Why not make the Soviet Union a separate country. When the revolution triggers, place a bunch of Soviet units and change some territory ownership. Then the let the Soviets fight it out with the remaining Russian units.

iratoric

@rogercooper This is a good idea! First, though, I would like to see if I can make a new Soviet capital in Moscow. It would look strange to have the Soviet symbol over Russia before the revolution occurred.

Schulz

@rogercooper @iratoric Adding the Bolsheviks would be obviously more realistic but I would have doubts if it would be possible to incorporate the Russian civil war.

Trotsky initially refused to sign a peace treatry with CP then the Germans resume the war on Eastern Front again which ended with German success and it left the Bolsheviks no chocie but sign the Brest-Litovsk.
The Bolsheviks could still have refused to sign the Brest-Litovsk, plus the Germans seriously considered to topple the Bolshevik government.
There were also different possibilities like the Whites win the civil war but also left the war or the Bolsheviks having fighting with both CP and White Russians etc...

CP-Bolshevik relations were between War and Neutrality hence Bolsheviks should never be controlled by CP player. Luckly AI could handle the Bolsheviks well.

Overall I would be fine with either way if there will be Russian civil war or not I would certainly not set Bolsheviks neutral to CP and being controlled by the CP player like it is in NML.

Also I think it would be nice to make Karelia touching Barents Sea Zone to give Allies opportunity to fight with Communists.

BTW you could remove the unneeded technology chart from the "Players" tab by adding just this two line between
</production> and <attachmentList>.

 <playerProduction player="United_States" frontier="United_StatesFrontier"/>
    </production>
                <technology>
        </technology>
       <attachmentList>
                <attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="aaGun" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">

iratoric

I just made it so the Soviet flag appears over Moscow upon the Russian Revolution being triggered:
capital change.PNG

I have yet to add Soviet units. Tell me if you would like to see this in the game or if you would like it to focus more on World War 1 and not the Russian Civil War.